Were you listening to Today on Radio 4 this morning when there was a discussion about intensive farming and intensive broiler chicken production (listen here at 51 minutes into programme)?
There is a planning application near where I live for a new intensive broiler unit to rear day-old chicks to table weight. Ten poultry sheds are planned which will each house 54,000 birds – 540,000 birds at any one time. Each shed will operate 7.5 cycles of birds per year – so over 4 million birds will pass through this site every year. Makes you think really doesn’t it? I find that 82 million broiler chickens were slaughtered in August this year – a phenomenal number. In fact, a quite staggering number.
This is probably the place to say that I very rarely eat chicken (being veggie 4+ days a week helps achieve that) but when I do it is almost always free-range chicken. I eat quite a lot of delicious, locally-produced organic eggs though. And this may also be the place to say that I might even give Pheasant meat a plug here if only it weren’t shot with toxic ammunition and the Food Standards Agency suggests we all minimise our ingestion of lead-shot game.
I think I’m going to object to this proposal, and I’ll let you know if I do. But my interest has been generated by having a look at the system – trying to understand what is proposed, even trying to understand where it is proposed, and what it would actually mean.
East Northants Council online planning system is hopelessly confusing and is a barrier to public access to the information and therefore to public involvement in the planning system. It is no longer possible to view the documents in paper form at the planning office – everything is online (which is a barrier to access for a start) but then the online documents are very unhelpfully collated and labelled making it very difficult to find out the most basic information. It amounts to throwing all the papers on the floor and saying ‘It’s all there, work it out for yourself!’.
In this case, the online information does not include the most basic information about the closing date for submissions. When I phoned East Northants Council a rather defensive, but helpful, duty planning officer told me that the closing date for comments was today (6 October), but I then received an email from the Principal Planning Officer stating that the closing date (although the Council would consider late comments at their discretion) is Monday 9 October. At least one public notice near the site (photographed yesterday) states that the closing date for comments is 25 August. Shambles!
Where is the site? You might think that clicking on ‘Location Plan’ on the online information might indicate where the site is? In fact it is a detailed map of the site but contains no grid reference and no words to indicate where the site is. The A6 which passes close to the site (I now know) is shown on the location map but not even labelled. It’s possible to find the area with the information provided – but no-one could call it easy. I understand, at least I think I understand, from an EA comment sent to ENC on 18 September (but only published on 4 October) that the relevant area changed at some stage and the map in the EA email covers a much larger area than that in the location plan of the applicant. I’m confused. I’ve asked ENC for clarification.
One of my favourite books, I regard it as an environmental book, is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams – the opening chapter deals with the local and galactic planning systems. Trying to make sense of this planning application is reminding me to read the book again.
I’m still looking at the information online – it is a massive struggle! – but the environmental statement includes an extended Phase 1 habitat survey which was done on one rainy, windy day in September 2016. Not surprisingly, the list of birds and invertebrates seen was unimpressive. This site is close to an SPA in the Nene Valley.
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I buy my fresh chickens from my local butcher never super mkts eggs from a local farmer our doors hens
Hi Mark,
We face a similar ‘2 Sisters’ intensive chicken factory planning application at Sutton Veny in Wiltshire. We have a local campaign group and website fighting against this proposal, which might be of interest to you: http://www.spittingfeathers.info
I have been following with interest the articles in the Guardian about the 2 Sisters processing plant, which make grim reading for consumers of cut-price chicken.
I hope you submit your objections to the planning application in time. Remember one of my favourite Douglas Adams quotes: “I love deadlines; I love the wooshing noise they make as they fly by”.
I keep my own poultry, principally for eggs, but formerly for meat also. These days I only buy chicken meat from a traceable source. I aim to buy as much of my food locally produced. Here in Kent that is easier than for many elsewhere in the country, but no sign of organic mangoes, papaya or avocados in a 15 mile radius of Canterbury as yet! All hens, deserve better than the way the industrial meat machine treats them. Mine lay nearly 30 eggs a week, and recycle all my kitchen waste and much of the garden waste as well, producing another valuable by-product in the process.
A few years ago i visited an intensive chicken shed adjoining land we were buying for a community forest. It was state of the art in terms of welfare – it barely smelt and there were no sick or dead chickens in evidence, and they had enough room to move. chickens are shipped in as young chicks, reared rapidly and driven out into lorries in the dark to go straight to the slaughterhouse – they have never seen real daylight in their short lives. There was no doubt their physical needs were being taken care of, and they probably weren’t suffering in the way a crated sow or veal calf would. However, what was beyond that for these animals ? This was a highly efficient factory, a factory that brings us meat cheaper than fresh vegetables. It is the absolute point at which I find there is no wriggle room from the challenge of what we are doing to animals – alive, yes, but are they living ? Is it really necessary ? Surely the neo-capitalist drive to be cheaper and more competitive that has wrought its fury on these poor, white poults is now starting to do the same to us, even as we eat more and greedier, get fatter on tempting chemically flavour-enhanced morsels.
Don’t forget that these chickens would have been fed commercially raised crops, plastered with chemicals, for their food, on land that could have produced food for humans directly, and who knows what medications have been administered to prevent diseases spreading in such confined quarters. I’m happy that I don’t eat meat.
welcome to the wonderful world of planning documents
A couple of pointers:
1. Phase 1 per JNCC 2010 (see Env Statement 8.2) isn’t enough to damn it- the detailed data missing from the poor Extended Phase 1 Habitat Survey are needed for such a conclusion.
2. Why no desk search: critical if bats are about; there is a wood nearby, the site approach hedges (also in red line for the application, but not surveyed) are varied and link the actual site more widely. Bats are being discounted with no data, no substantiation (see Collins 2016- which they say the followed- which requires data and substantiation of all statements) or support for tree assessments e.g. endoscopes, bat poos etc
3. The ‘species’ data are poor, not properly presented (missing in main part) and need better link to caveat about time of year etc.
4. We have an observer doing everything at once(staring at plants, holes, birds, reptile cover, checking out for grass snakes) which is pretty skilled- for an unknown duration. Did this person check on both sides of the hedge- appears not; they do differ.
5. Dormice- perhaps the surveyor might check Juskaitis & Buchner 2013 ‘The hazel dormouse’ for food breadth…… That entry hedge is so suitable
In short (more could be said) the data are poor, cursory and unreliable. Look a little more and you’ll find additional issues
Tim – many thanks. With your and others’ help I am doing that right now!
I was going to make the same points as Tim.
Low potential trees for bats, but with multiple voids and roost features – surely Moderate at least? Foraging/commuting is definitely Moderate as well.
Lots of Badger signs, but no wider search – did they look at the other side of the hedge? As the copse on the south is ‘outside’ of the site and didn’t seem to be included in the report, I doubt it, perhaps the outside of the hedge is also off site!
I guess that the ditch along the SE boundary is also off site, hence no watercourses present for Water Voles etc?
A pond on a well established hedgerow judged to have poor terrestrial connectivity for GCN? Similar habitat in nearby Wymmington has GCN in ‘poor’ ponds, probably because all the good one’s have gone!
The basic lack of any desk-based element for a sub-optimally timed survey is very poor practice.
That said, unless there are GCN in that pond, badgers in the copse or the developer suddenly decides that actually the trees do need to come out, a thorough survey and appropriate mitigation would actually result in the same conclusions regarding ecology.
Visual impact/Cultural Heritage (Medieval Higham Park, site on a ridge etc) and pollution (lots of chicken manure!) are more likely receptors to object about. But it’s probably worth getting the ecology done properly, i.e. survey the field plus a buffer so the obvious habitat features adjoining the site are not completely ignored and get the local records search added…as per the claimed CIEEM methodology
ah, those innocuous little black and white notice tied to lampposts and fences. What horrendous changes they can signify.
Monbiot good recently on industrial meat production, especially the effluent produced in huge quantities. Some Graun articles and video here:
https://www.facebook.com/DoubleDownNews/
If you have important water habitat near this site it might be worth emphasising the effluent side in your critique.
Planning system favours developers or projects such as this. If the planners reject the application then the applicant appeals. Great expense to local authority (public purse) so often reluctant to reject on cost grounds. If planners grant the application then the local community as objectors get no further say.
The planning system IMHO needs serious review and reform. As does the subsidy system.
As for the meat, no thanks. I’ll do as others do shop from local traceable source, grow own etc.
But, good luck to all. Community campaigns should be run and can be effective.
Further to Chris T:
I had hesitated about dragging in CIEEM, but this is rather important. As MCIEEM they should provide all data (they don’t), they should back up all assertions with substaniation (they don’t), they should be in line with CIEEM professional code of conduct (they aren’t).
If applying the Collins (2016) BCT bat guidance the need for openness, data, reasoning, context, cumulative impact etc that also come from BS 42020 are also clear- so the report fails on process, disclosure, substantiation, suitability, methods etc
If this scheme is rejected for whatever reason the industry will only try elsewhere. The only way to stop these kinds of developments is for people to cut down on the amount of poultry (and meat in general) that they consume.
I’m not a militant vegetarian, I eat small amounts of animal products, and have no qualms about people eating small amounts of ethical animal products, such as Mark does, what I think is unsustainable is consumption of meat on a daily basis. Even if all livestock was raised according to the highest welfare standards the environmental impact of current levels of meat consumption would be unsustainable.